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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28135551">of grace</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxlives/pseuds/sea_changed'>sea_changed (foxlives)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lord John Series - Diana Gabaldon, Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Missing Scene</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:00:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,388</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28135551</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxlives/pseuds/sea_changed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He did not know exactly the reason behind it, but he hoped with a strength he could not have guessed at that John Grey would not die here in this field, all that blood on him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jamie Fraser &amp; Lord John Grey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>of grace</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/marz20/gifts">marz20</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Takes place directly after Lord John's duel with Twelvetrees/Chapter 32 of <i>The Scottish Prisoner</i>.</p>
<p>Happy Yuletide!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He had seen plenty of blood in his life but Grey’s blood was still shocking; shocking as all blood is shocking and the more so for the clean white shirt and pale skin it was blooming over. Jamie could hear Tom Byrd only a few steps behind him, saying “Oh no, oh God, oh please,” like a litany between staggered breaths as he ran. Jamie found that he agreed, that his heart beat in time to the words. He did not know exactly the reason behind it, but he hoped with a strength he could not have guessed at that John Grey would not die here in this field, all that blood on him.</p>
<p>Dr. Hunter was occupied with Twelvetrees, so the oath Jamie had sworn to Grey before the duel was easily kept. Less easy was what to do with him without a doctor at hand, even a thieving ghoul of one; he would have to be brought somewhere. Jamie was first to reach his side, a stronger runner than Byrd even with all Byrd’s determination, but he had to stop up short, only staring down for a moment at Grey’s—at Grey. Not only his body, not yet, though looking at him Jamie thought it was just a thread now holding body and soul together, and a thin one.</p>
<p>Grey looked very small. This in itself was a jolt, for though Jamie had nearly a head on him Lord John Grey was not a small man: stature aside, his rank and his bearing—and his tailoring—would not allow it. He was very powerful and very clever and a very good soldier, and he would not let you forget any of it. Together, it made him seem a fair bit greater than he was.</p>
<p>Like this, without hat or coat or waistcoat, barelegged to the knee and with the blood, all of the blood, he was not great, or powerful, or anything but a man, balanced on the edge of death. </p>
<p>There were men shouting, but Jamie couldn’t hear them properly. Instead of trying to focus on them, he knelt beside Grey, and put a hand on his arm. He looked too delicate to carry; Jamie thought of a spun-sugar figure he’d been served once in France, that had fallen to powder between his fingers as soon as he’d touched it. But Grey could not stay here. He might die if Jamie carried him away but he <em>would</em> die if he left him, and that was the short of decision Jamie knew well. He could make it in half a breath.</p>
<p>He closed his eyes, hand still on Grey’s arm. <em>Mary, mother of God</em>, he prayed quickly. <em>Let the man live.</em></p>
<p>He opened his eyes; Byrd was knelt on the other side of Grey, hand bloody where he’d tried to press it against the bleeding. “Step away, wee Byrd,” Jamie told him, gently as he could; but there must have been a note in his voice, as Byrd looked up, wide-eyed, and listened to him without hesitation.</p>
<p>Jamie put an arm under Grey’s shoulders, muttering Hail Marys to himself under his breath for something to think about other than the way Grey, still unconscious, made a low animal sound of pain, sounding so unlike himself. Jamie’s other arm went under Grey’s knees, and he lifted him with a grunt that interrupted his litany. Grey’s solid weight, unexpectedly heavy, was somehow heartening. </p>
<p>Quarry, showing a clear-headedness Jamie wouldn’t have expected of him, had run not to Grey but to the carriage, and stood there now, huffing and puffing instructions to the driver. Byrd, after a few moments of shocked immobility, had scampered after Jamie as he carried Grey to the carriage, and ran ahead to hold the door open. </p>
<p>The doorway was narrow, and Jamie had to concentrate so as not to knock Grey’s lolling head. The blood, he thought distractedly, was extraordinary; how was it possible the man was still breathing? He had seen men live through extreme injuries, had done it himself, but they were sturdy, healthy men. Grey, despite his heft in Jamie’s arms, seemed so slight, nearly fragile. His skin was bone-white now, as if all the blood had been siphoned from the rest of his body to the ever-swelling bloom over his chest. His pale feet, as small and delicate as a woman’s, seemed nearly obscene against the blue plush of the carriage’s seat cushion.</p>
<p>When the carriage rattled to life beneath them, Grey moaned again, turned his head toward Jamie’s chest. Byrd, sitting across from them, sat forward, said, “Me lord?” in such a tender voice that Jamie wanted to turn away. But Grey hadn’t awoken; he was still trapped in his head, insensible.</p>
<p>Jamie watched him hawkishly, worried if he looked away Grey would take a turn for the worse. His hair had mud in it, odd to see in a man usually so fastidious. Something was happening in Jamie’s own chest, a phantom mirror of Grey’s wound, so that the place behind his breastbone seemed to ache. He had once cared for the man now bleeding in his arms, and then had been revolted by him, and had been obscurely grateful to him and had despised him. All of those things had been true in their moments, and all of them were still true now, in varied proportions. But overriding them all was still that clear-eyed desire that Jamie had felt looking at Grey fallen on the green, that he would not die, right now, like this. </p>
<p>There was a time when that would not have been true, and yet: now it was. Jamie did not like the idea of delivering his body up to Pardloe, or facing questions about what he had or had not done to help Grey in his last moments, that was true. But more than that, he did not want this perverse, confounding, wrong-headed man to die. It did not seem right. </p>
<p>He had spared Grey’s life once, and Grey had promised to kill him then, once the debt had been repaid. It was at once hard to match the scowling, haughty boy Grey had been then to the elegant and ferocious man he had been just now on the field, and at the same time terribly easy: both were very proud, and very foolish. Jamie has thought more than once how he wished he’d simply killed him back when they first met, how that would have saved him disgusting advances and a flogging and made his life simpler and better. Now he wished for him to live. Jamie wasn’t sure where the line of divide had lain, when he had crossed it; there had no moment of recognition or shiver down his spine, but crossed it he had and he wished he’d known, had some warning about it. To see it now, the man’s blood on his hands up to the wrist and each of his short wracking breaths pressing his rib cage against Jamie’s arm in a faint staggering rhythm, seemed an irony difficult to bear.</p>
<p>The blood on Grey’s chest was very dark; the carriage jostled and Grey moaned again. <em>Hail Mary, full of grace</em>, Jamie began reciting in his head, reflexive and soothing. Before he could finish, the carriage was slowing; Byrd felt it too, and leapt out the door before it had fully stopped, so that by the time it had he was holding the door open for Jamie to carry Grey out, the shining marble steps of Argus House awaiting them, the promise of help inside.</p>
<p>Jamie looked down at Grey. There was blood too in Grey’s hair, he noticed, matting the wisps that had escaped his tidy queue as he fought. There was mud on his bare feet and streaked up his calves, with a few blades of grass caught in it. He would not like to be seen like this, was Jamie’s last, odd thought, before adjusting Grey’s body in his arms, and stepping out of the carriage</p>
<p>The harsh sounds of Grey’s breath were almost a relief, that he had made it this far and so might well make it longer. Jamie climbed the steps of the house, Grey’s head resting against his shoulder like a child’s, and continued on: <em>Holy Mary, mother of God. . .</em></p>
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